Extrapolation

I'd been doing some reading around this site, and thought it might be interesting if I posted some of my own speculation. If this doesn't all relate directly to Biblican inerrancy, I apologize; please relocate it and I'll be more careful.

This is all my own rambling. I've put the apologetic assertions in bold, with my own rebuttals below them. I spent years in Christian high school and college, so there are many more thorns in my side, but these have become the targets of my first wave, so to speak.

No society in history has existed without some measure of absolute virtues; therefore the concept of morals must originate from God.
What about the Aztecs? The Nordic berserkers and Vikings? The Huns? The Mongols? The Roman Empire C.E. 200-500? All these societies and groups made use of some distinct honor code, but it's safe to agree that none would be fully acceptable by a Judaic moralistic mindset, despite the fact that each of these groups held a firm belief in a deity or deities of some sort. Some of these value systems are even consistent with one another, and many such groups and civilizations survived for centuries. What held such groups together as cohesive unites for extended periods of time? Presumably, the same things that held Judeo-Christian groups together and strengthened them over time: a sense of community, common beliefs, common enemies, and a common goal.

Even if my above assertion could be invalidated, the pro argument's final leap from premise to conclusion seems presumptuous. There is no reason to assume that "morality" could not have developed as a means of intra-communal cooperation. Aberrations (i.e., racial cleansing, genocide) seem to further support this concept, as groups that perpetrated such atrocities not only cease to exist, but such systemic conflicts actually serve, over time, to reinforce and enhance the cohesiveness of any survivors of such conflicts. Assuming human interaction operates within an essentially fixed system (allowing for such discrepancies as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), we could no more blame the perpetrators of such atrocities than we can blame a bear for catching and eating a stranded hunter. In fact, such temporary setbacks should eventually serve to enhance our probability for survival.

Choice, then, is another problem I find infuriating, but bringing up unknowability and quantum mechanics would likely reveal my own limits in the subject.

Early Christians suffered horribly, and were martyred for their faith; they would have recanted if it was false.
Indeed, quite regrettable. So were early Jews, Muslims, Druids, pantheists, pagans of all varieties, etc., etc. Many believed wholeheartedly in their dogma, and died willingly for it. The fact that the early Christians believed in something unquestioningly does not negate the possibility of its falsehood. This argument holds absolutely no weight.

The Bible was composed by numerous authors, yet it holds together remarkably well.
What really hold together (somewhat) are the books that remain after the early councils threw away the books they found inconsistent with their interpretation. Paul's third letter to the Corinthians, the gospel of Thomas, and several other versions of Revelation (some preferred by members of the clergy over John's version) were thrown out because they failed to support the ideas of the rest of the chosen canon. James' epistles were also very nearly removed, but of course, now they're regarded as (no pun intended) gospel. I doubt even most intelligent Protestants would assert that the councils themselves were divinely coordinated, yet they never question the fact that their canon was selected and immutably locked in place by self-admittedly fallible, mortal men.

As for the agreement between the apostolic writings themselves, not only do they conflict suspiciously in places with the histories of their contemporaries, but the largely undisputed fact that Mark's gospel was the first composed, and the widely accepted (even among some conservatives) theory that the gospels originate from the "Q" source, point to the idea that the later writers simply shared and dramatized these earlier narratives, which were not necessarily factual and historic themselves. Beyond that, much of the New Testament appears inconsistent when compared with the Old Testament, especially descriptions of God's interaction with humankind, and certain prophecies which Biblical scholars freely admit do not apply to the Messiah, then proceed to apply to the Messiah.

These are just my own musings on the subjects. I'd welcome rebuttals/affirmations/corrections, whatever anyone can come up with. Those who made it to the end, thanks for reading; I hope I've been an engaging writer.

offa

I concur. I have a code of honor and I am an atheist. My problem is knowledge and you cannot take that away from me.

offa